Читать книгу The Soul Stealer - Thorne Guy - Страница 8

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Marjorie and Lady Poole came into the room. For two at least of the people there it was an agonizing moment. But a second before, Sir William Gouldesbrough had been proposing to steal and open a letter written by another man to his fiancée. But a second before, Mr. Eustace Charliewood, the well-known society man, had sullenly acquiesced in the proposal. And now here was Marjorie Poole confronting them.

"We thought we'd come to tea, William," Lady Poole said effusively, going forward to shake hands with her future son-in-law. "Ah, Mr. Charliewood, how do you do?" She gave him a bright nod, and he turned to Marjorie, while her mother was shaking hands with the scientist.

Charliewood's face was flushed a deep red, and his hand trembled so that the tall girl looked at him in some surprise.

Marjorie Poole was a maiden for whom many men had sighed. The oval face with its pure olive complexion, the large brown eyes, clear as a forest pool, the coiled masses of hair, the colour of deeply ripened corn, made up a personality of singular distinction and charm. She was the sort of girl of whom people asked, "Who is she?" And if younger sons and other people who knew that they could never win and wear her, said that she was a little too reserved and cold, it was only a prejudiced way of expressing her complete grace and ease of manner.

"How are you, Mr. Charliewood?" she said in a clear, bell-like voice. "I haven't seen you since the Carr's dance."

"Well, to tell the truth, Miss Poole," Charliewood answered with a voice that had a singular tremor in it, "you startled me out of my wits when you came in. Just a moment before, Sir William had mentioned your name, and we were both thinking of you when, as quick as one of those ridiculous entrances on the stage, pat upon the very word, the butler threw open the door and you came in."

"Oh, a stage entrance!" Marjorie answered. "I don't like stage entrances;" and turning away she went up to her fiancé, making it quite clear that, whatever her opinions about the conventions of the boards might be, she did not like Mr. Charliewood.

The big, light-haired man stayed for a moment or two, made a few conventional remarks, and then wished his host farewell.

As he crossed the hall he began mechanically to put on the heavy astrachan coat upon his arm, then, with a muttered curse which surprised the butler, he took it off again and hurriedly left the house.

"Well, and how are you, William?" said Lady Poole, sitting down by the fire. "Are you going to give us some tea? We have been paying calls, and I told Marjorie that we would just come on and see how you were, in case you might be in. And how is the electricity going? Why don't you invent a flying-machine? I'm sure it would be more useful than the things you do invent. How charming it would be to step out of one's bedroom window into one's aëriel brougham and tell the man to fly to the Savoy!"

Gouldesbrough did not immediately reply, but old Lady Poole was used to this.

She was a tall, florid old thing, richly dressed, with an ample and expansive manner. Now that Sir William had proposed and the forthcoming marriage was an accepted thing, the good lady felt her duty was done. Having satisfied herself of Sir William's position, his banking account and his general eligibility, she cared for nothing else, and she had grown quite accustomed to the little snubs she received from his hands from time to time.

Gouldesbrough was looking at Marjorie. His deep blue eyes had leapt up from their usual intense calm into flame. The thin-cut lips were slightly parted, the whole man had become humanized and real in a single moment.

The sinister suggestion had dropped from him as a cloak is thrown off, and he remembered nothing of the plot he had been hatching, but only saw before him the radiant girl he adored with all the force of his nature and all the passion of a dark but powerful soul, to which love had never come before.

"How are you, dearest?" he said anxiously. "Do you know that I haven't heard from you or seen you for nearly four days? Tell me all that you have been doing, all that you have been thinking."

"Four days, is it?" Lady Poole broke in. "Well, you know, my dear William, you will have plenty of time with Marjorie in the future, you mustn't attempt to monopolize her just at present. There have been so many engagements, and I'm sure you have been entirely happy with the electricity, haven't you? Such a comfort, I think, to have a hobby. It gives a real interest in life. And I'm sure, when a hobby like yours has proved so successful, it's an additional advantage. I have known so many men who have been miserable because they have never had anything to do to amuse them. And unless they take up wood-carving or fretwork or something, time hangs so heavily, and they become a nuisance to their wives. Poor Sir Frederick only took up tact as a hobby. Though that was very useful at a party, it was horribly boring in private life. One always felt he understood one too well!"

Up to the present Marjorie had said nothing. She seemed slightly restless, and the smile that played about her lips was faint and abstracted. Her thoughts seemed elsewhere, and the scrutiny of the deep blue eyes seemed slightly to unnerve her.

At that moment the butler entered, followed by a footman carrying a tea-table.

Marjorie sank down with a sigh of relief.

"I'm so tired," she said in a quiet voice. "Mother's been dragging me about to all sorts of places. William, why do you have that horrid man, Eustace Charliewood, here? He always seems about the house like a big tame cat. I detest him."

Gouldesbrough winced at the words. He had put his hand into the side-pocket of his coat, and his fingers had fallen upon a certain letter. Ah! why, indeed, did he have Charliewood for a friend?

His answer was singularly unconvincing, and the girl looked at him in surprise. He was not wont to speak thus, with so little directness.

"Oh, I don't know, dear," he answered. "He's useful, you know. He attends to a lot of things for me that I'm too busy to look after myself."

Again Marjorie did not answer.

"What have you been doing, William?" she said at length, stirring the tea in her cup.

"I've been thinking about you principally," he answered.

She frowned a little. "Oh, I don't mean in that way," she answered quickly. "Tell me about real things, important things. What are you working at now? How is your work going?"

He noticed that something like enthusiasm had crept into her voice—that she took a real interest in his science. His heart throbbed with anger. It was not thus that he wished to hear her speak. It was he himself, not his work, that he longed with all his heart and soul this stately damsel should care about.

But, resolute always in will, completely master of himself and his emotion, he turned at once and began to give her the information which she sought.

And as he spoke his voice soon began to change. It rang with power. It became vibrant, thrilling. There was a sense of inordinate strength and confidence in it.

While old Lady Poole leant back in her chair with closed eyes and a gentle smile playing about her lips, enjoying, in fact, a short and well-earned nap, the great scientist's passionate voice boomed out into the room and held Marjorie fascinated.

She leant forward, listening to him with strained attention—her lips a little parted, her face alight with interest, with eagerness.

"You want to hear, dearest," he said, "you want to hear? And to whom would I rather tell my news? At whose feet would I rather lay the results of all I am and have done? Listen! Even to you I cannot tell everything. Even to you I cannot give the full results of the problems I have been working at for so many years. But I can tell you enough to hold your attention, to interest you, as you have never been interested before."

He began to speak very slowly.

"I have done something at last, after years of patient working and thought, which it is not too much to say will revolutionize the whole of modern life—will revolutionize the whole of life, indeed, as it has never been changed before. All the other things I have done and made, all the results of my scientific work have been but off-shoots of this great central idea, which has been mine since I first began. The other things that have won me fame and fortune were discovered upon the way towards the central object of my life. And now, at last, I find myself in full possession of the truth of all my theories. In a month or two from now my work will be perfected, then the whole world will know what I have done. And the whole world will tremble, and there will be fear and wonder in the minds of men and women, and they will look at each other as if they recognized that humanity at last was waking out of a sleep and a dream."

"Is it so marvellous as all that?" she said almost in a whisper, awed by the earnestness of his manner.

"I am no maker of phrases," he replied, "nor am I eloquent. I cannot tell you how marvellous it is. The one great citadel against which human ingenuity and time have beaten in vain since our first forefathers, is stormed at last! In my hands will shortly be the keys of the human soul. No man or woman will have a secret from me. The whole relation of society will be changed utterly."

"What is it? What is it?" she asked with a light in her eyes. "Have you done what mother said in jest? Have you indeed finally conquered the air?"

He waved his hand with a scornful gesture.

"Greater far—greater than that," he answered. "Such a vulgar and mechanical triumph is not one I would seek. In a material age it is perhaps a great thing for this or that scientist to invent a means of transit quicker and surer than another. But what is it, after all? Mere accurate scientific knowledge supplemented by inventive power. No! Such inventions as the steam-engine, printing, gun-powder, are great in their way, but they have only revolutionized the surface of things; the human soul remains as it was before. What I now know is a far, far loftier and more marvellous thing."

In his excitement he had risen and was bending over her.

Now she also rose, and stared into his face with one hand upon his arm.

"Oh, tell me," she said, "what in life can be so strange, so terrible in its effects as this you speak of?"

"Listen," he answered once more. "You know what light is? You know that it can be split up into its component parts by means of the prism in the spectroscope?"

"Every child knows that to-day," she answered.

"Good!" he replied. And he went on. "I am putting this in the very simplest possible language. I want you to see the broadest, barest, simplest outlines. Do you know anything of the human mind? What should you say hypnotism was, for instance, in ordinary words?"

"Surely," she replied, "it is the power of one brain acting upon another."

"Exactly," he said, "and in what way? How is a brain, not physically touching another brain, able to influence it?"

"By magnetism," she replied, "by"—she hesitated for a word—"by a sort of current passing from one brain to another."

He held out both his hands in front of him. They were clasped, and she saw that his wrists were shaking. He was terribly excited.

"Yes," he went on, his voice dropping lower and lower and becoming even more intense, "you have said exactly the truth. The brain is a marvellous instrument, a sensitive instrument, an electric instrument which is constantly giving out strange, subtle, and hitherto uninvestigated currents. It is like the transmitter at the top of Signor Marconi's wireless telegraphy station. Something unseen goes out into the air, and far away over the Mother of Oceans something answers to its influence. That is exactly what happens with the human brain. Countless experiments have proved it, the scientists of the world are agreed."

"Then——?" she said.

"Supposing I had discovered how to collect these rays or vibrations, for that is the better word, these delicate vibrations which come from the human brain?"

"I think I begin to see," Marjorie said slowly, painfully, as if the words were forced from her and she spoke them under great emotion. "I think I begin to see a little light."

"Ah," he answered, "you are always above ordinary women. There is no one in the world like you. Your brain is keen, subtle, strong. You were destined for me from the first."

Once more, even in the midst of her excitement, a shade passed over her face. She touched him on the arm again.

"Go on! Tell me! Not this, not that. Tell me about the work!"

"I," he repeated, "I alone of all men in the world have learnt how to collect the invisible vibrations of thought itself. Now, remember what I told you at first. I mentioned Light, the way in which Light can be passed through a prism, split up into its component parts, and give the secret of its composition to the eye of the scientist. Not only can I collect the mysterious vibrations of the human brain, but I can pass them through a spectroscope more marvellous than any instrument ever dreamt of in the history of the world. I can take the vibrations of thought, and discover their consistency, their strength, their meaning."

She stared at him incredulously. "Even yet," she said, "I fail to see the ultimate adaptation of all this. I realize that you have discovered a hitherto unproved truth about the mechanism of thought. That is an achievement which will send your name ringing down the avenues of the future. But there seems to be something behind all you are telling me. You have more to say. What is the practical outcome of all this, this theoretical fact?"

"It is this," he answered. "I hold in my hands the power to know what this or that person, be it a king upon his throne, a girl on her wedding day, or a criminal in the dock, is thinking at any given moment."

She started from him with a little cry. "Oh no," she said, and her face had grown very white indeed. "Oh no, God would not allow it. It is a power only God has."

He laughed, and in his laugh she heard something that made her shrink back still further. It was a laugh such as Lucifer might have laughed, who defied a Power which he would not acknowledge to be greater than his.

"You will never do that," she said, "wonderful as you are."

"Marjorie," he answered, "I am a man with a brain that theorizes, but never ventures upon a statement that cannot be proved by fact. If I tell you this, if I hint broadly at the outcome of my life's work, I am doing so, believe me, because I have chapter and verse for all I say, because I can prove that it has passed from the dim realms of theory and of hope into the brilliant daylight of actual achievement!"

She stared at him. His words were too much for her mind to grasp immediately.

It was an intense moment.

But, as in real life intense moments generally are, it was broken by a curious interruption.

A voice came thickly from the arm-chair by the fire, where old Lady Poole had been reclining in placid sleep. It was the strange voice of one who sleeps, without expression, but perfectly distinct.

"I will not have it, cook—(indistinguishable murmur)—explained when I engaged you—will not have men in the kitchen!"

Sir William and Marjorie looked at each other for a moment with blank faces. Then, all overstrung as they were, the absurdity of the occurrence struck them at the same moment, and they began to laugh softly together.

It was a little pleasant and very human interlude in the middle of these high matters, and at that moment the great man felt that he was nearer to Marjorie than he had been before at any other moment of the afternoon. She no longer hung entranced upon his impassioned and wonderful words, she laughed with him quite quietly and simply.

Lady Poole snored deeply, and no longer vocalized the drama of her domestic dream.

Suddenly Marjorie turned back once more to Sir William.

"It's only mother dreaming about one of the servants we have had to send away," she said. "What a stupid interruption! Now, go on, go on!"

Her voice recalled him to his marvellous story.

"Tell me what is the actual achievement," she said.

"It is this. When you speak into a telephone the vibrations of your voice agitate a sensitive membrane, and by means of electricity the vibrations are conveyed to almost any distance. When Madame Melba sings into the gramophone, her voice agitates the membrane, which in its turn agitates a needle, which in its turn again makes certain marks upon a waxen disc."

"Yes, go on, go on!"

"When I put a certain instrument upon the head of a man or a woman, when I surround the field of emanation by a shield which captures the vibrations, they are conducted to a receiver more delicate and sensitive than anything which has ever been achieved by scientific process before. That receiver collects these vibrations and can transmit them, just in the manner of a telephone or telegraph wire, for almost any distance."

"And at the other end?" Marjorie asked.

"It has been a difficulty of ten long, anxious, unwearying years."

"And now?"

"Now that difficulty has been finally overcome."

"Therefore?"

"What a person thinks in London can be sent in vibrations along a wire to Paris."

"I see. I understand! But when there they can only be transmitted to another brain, of course. You mean that you have invented a more marvellous system of telegraphy than has ever been invented before. For instance, I could sit here in this room and communicate with you with absolute freedom in Paris. How wonderful that is! What a triumphant achievement! But—but, William, marvellous as it is, you do not substantiate what you said just now. The secrets of thought may be yours, but only when the sender wills it."

"Ah," he answered, with a deep note of meaning coming into his voice. "If I had only discovered what you say, I should have discovered much. But I have gone far, far away from this. I have done much, much more. And in that lies the supreme value of my work."

Once more they were standing together, strained with wonder, with amazement and triumph passing between them like the shuttle of a loom; once more she was caught up into high realms of excitement and dawning knowledge, the gates of which had never opened to her brain before.

"To come back to the phonograph," Sir William said. "The marks are made upon the waxen disc, and they are afterwards reproduced in sound, recorded upon metal plates to remain for ever as a definite reproduction of the human voice. Now, and here I come to the final point of all, I have discovered a means by which thought can be turned into actual vision, into an actual expression of itself for every one to read. What I mean is this. I have discovered the process, and I have invented the machine by which, as a person thinks, the thought can be conveyed to any distance along the wire, can be received at the other end by an instrument which splits it up into this or that vibration. And these vibrations actuate upon a machine by the spectroscope, by the bioscope, which show them upon a screen in the form of either pictures or of words as the thoughts of the thinker are at that moment sent out by the brain in words or pictures."

"Then what does this mean?"

"It means that once my apparatus, whether by consent of the subject or by force, is employed to collect the thought vibrations, then no secrets can be hidden. The human soul must reveal itself. Human personality is robbed of its only defence. There will be no need to try the criminal of the future. He must confess in spite of himself. The inviolability of thought is destroyed. The lonely citadel of self exists no longer. The pious hypocrite must give his secret to the world, and sins and sinners must confess to man what only God knew before."

Marjorie sat down in her chair and covered her face with her hands. Various emotions thronged and pulsed through her brain. The stupendous thing that this man had done filled her with awe for his powers, with terror almost, but with a great exultation also. She did not love him, she knew well that she had never loved him, but she realized her influence over him. She knew that this supreme intellect was hers to do with as she would. She knew that if he was indeed, as he said, master of the world, she was mistress of his mind, she was the mistress of him. The mysterious force of his love, greater than any other earthly force which he could capture or control, had made him, who could make the minds of others his slaves and instruments, the slave of her.

Yes! Love! That, after all, was the greatest force in the whole world. Here was a more conclusive proof than perhaps any woman had ever had before in the history of humanity.

Love! Even while the inmost secrets of nature were wrested from her by such a man as this, love was still his master, love was still the motive power of the world.

And as she thought that, she forgot for a moment all her fears and all her wonder, in a final realization of what all the poets had sung and all the scientists striven to destroy. Her blood thrilled and pulsed with the knowledge, but it did not thrill or pulse for the man whose revelations had confirmed her in it. The man whom she had promised to marry was the man who had confirmed her in the knowledge of the truth. And all he had said and done filled her with a strange joy such as she had never known before.

At that moment Sir William came towards her. He had switched on the electric light, and the room was now brilliantly illuminated. In his hand he held a large oval thing of brass, bright and shining.

At that moment, also, old Lady Poole woke up with a start.

"Dear me," she said, "I must have taken forty winks. Well, I suppose, my dear children, that I have proved my absolute inability to be de trop! What are you doing, William?"

"It's a little experiment," Sir William said, "one of my inventions, Lady Poole. Marjorie, I want you to take off your hat."

Marjorie did so. With careful and loving hands the great man placed the metal helmet upon her head. The girl let him do so as if she were in a dream. Then Sir William pressed a button in the wall. In a few seconds there was an answering and sudden ring of an electric bell in the study.

"Now, Marjorie!" Sir William said, "now, all I have told you is being actually proved."

He looked at her face, which flowered beneath the grotesque and shining cap of metal.

"Now, Marjorie, everything you are thinking is being definitely recorded in another place."

For a moment or two the significance of his words did not penetrate to her mind.

Then she realized them.

Lady Poole and the scientist saw the rapt expression fade away like a lamp that is turned out. Horror flashed out upon it, horror and fear. Her hands went up to her head; she swept off the brilliant helmet and flung it with a crash upon the ground.

Then she swayed for a moment and sank into a deep swoon.

She had been thinking of Mr. Guy Rathbone, barrister-at-law, and what her thoughts were, who can say?